HI all this is my first full year as a beekeeper i started with 1 hive .
Never mind. IT took me few years that I started to get honey. You have now 2 good hives.
And do not believe that beekeepings is that easy. Many loose their hives when they swarm to the sky's blue.
If you have normal hive, and you split it, it takes months that the hives are ready to make surplus honey = extra what you may harvest.
Small hive has such balance, that when eggs are layed, those eggs will be foragers 6 weeks later.
At first hive is small and makes small patch of brood. Then 6 weeks later, it may have two boxes brood and that tiny patches are now foragers.
Huge amount of larvae eate all the food what a small gang brings in.
Lets look a hive which has larvae in 2 boxes, 15 frames. After 6 weeks that mass are foragers. Each brood frame gives 3 frames bees.
that 15 brood frames give 50 frames of bees = 5 boxes.
So, it takes time, that 5 frame hives have 15 frames brood. And then finally it has 5 boxes bees.
In my climate 5 frame hive to 5 box hive takes 3 months.
2-box wintered hive is ready to forage honey after 6 weeks. All wintered bees die before summer and new bees must be over 6 weeks old. = 1,5 months.
So it depens, how the hives start and how the yield flowers give nectar.
When splitting the hive, you turned back its "foraging shedule".
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